ahhhhh.... finally the madness is over!!! only 2 more days (not including today) until 2009!!! we're gonna make that a good year! i have been slacking in the exercise department, well, for a while now... so i know it is cliche, but im going to make that a priority this time around. i really would like to be able to go to the pool this summer and not want to cringe. i think i will start out lite... maybe a yoga class or something like that a few times a week. maybe if i ease into it, i wont give up so quickly. i do love to do yoga anyways.

i hope that it will snow again soon... M got some pretty pink snowpants and i am sure she would love to go play in them. i dont think she really cares if there is snow or not, i bet she would play in them either way.

i managed to use my days off to get some cleaning done around the house. it was a complete mess! but now all the laundry is caught up, i bagged and boxed up some stuff to donate... i even put in some of my (gasp!!) shoes!! i tend not to wear sneackers enough to have as many pairs as i do, so i figured that they would be more useful elsewhere. i am also starting to feel like there is just too much clutter about and i need to get it out!! i think the more stuff there is, the more i start to feel trapped by it all, so it is good for me to clean it out every once in a while.

i did manage to finish 3 of the 4 quilts... but to the future owner of the 4th one i have already apologized and she will be getting it soon. i will post pics as soon as i put new batteries in my camera... they ran out on christmas.

i hope that everyone has had a great holiday... the new year is just around the corner and i can't wait!!

hugs'n'kisses!!!
Sham

merry christmas!!

so, i am a little bit sad... i guess my brothers and sisters-in law are going to come down for the holidays tonight instead of next week. that being said, i am working odd hours right now and G has a pack meeting, so i guess i will have to miss all the fun. boo hoo. on the otherhand, it will be nice to be able to spend a nice quiet(er) christmas with my parents. i am thinking about even (gasp!!) cooking something to take over there. i guess we will see how much time i can manage in order to cook. maybe even bake! i think i managed to finish up all my shopping last night, and i have finished one more quilt. they seem to go pretty fast since i have the tops done, the rest is easy-peasey!
i thought i had more to say today... guess not. talk to ya later alligator!!

one down... i may just pull this off! the others should go much quicker as i had to spend all day saturday getting material and stuff... didn't leave me much time to work on the actual quilt that day.

of course we have stuff to do this weekend as well... i have yet to put up the tree... i may put that off until next weekend though since i need the floorspace to put the quilts together. i did get most of the envelopes addressed so cards should be on the way soon. i should be able to get the kids gifts wrapped this weekend. and maybe i can even get the stockings up. it's gonna be busy... i may need a nice cocktail to keep things interesting! lol

so, the official countdown to christmas has begun... i would like to go back a few weeks, i don't think i have enough time. i was sure there would be plenty of time to finish up gifts, but now i am not so sure. i have 4 quilts to finish... as that was my original goal... but i only have the tops of 3 done and the borders, backs and binding of none. that's right - NONE!!! boy an i going to be busy these next 3 weeks. i have all of my cards sitting very patiently on my counter waiting to be addressed and sent... who knows when i will do that. i had planned on putting a nice family update letter in each of them that just may not get done either. i remember a time, not too long ago - before i had children, that i would be all shopped out and ready for christmas before i even had my costume ready for halloween. those days are long gone now. i will be lucky this year if i am ready by christmas eve! i would like to put in a request early for next year... maybe we could all just relax in december 2009 and celebrate christmas in january 2010?? february?? oh well... hopefully i will be able to pull it off. if not, you will know because you will be getting your cards and gifts in january with a nice little note of my sincerest apologies.

happy thanksgiving all!

well, if there has ever been a case for "safe haven" laws for older children (like the one that is being corrected in nebraska), M has sure made her case in the last week...

i think it was monday afternoon... not sure where i went but i was only gone for a short time. hubby was in the same room, but apparently napping on the sofa. it seems that a sharpie was left within reach and M went to work... i arrived home to find a life size (for a 3 year old) family portrait on the hallway wall. she was so proud of her work, she even pointed out who was who in the picture so we would know. thanks M for that. on a bright note, at least she is drawing pictures and not just scribbling... that's progress on her part!

the week seemed to be pretty quiet until friday afternoon. again, i left to get G from school and the two smaller ones were in the basement with the hubby. i came back to find that M decided that the fish were looking a bit starved. well, she fixed that! she managed to pull a chair over to where we keep the fish food and then proceeded to dump all the remaining food into the tank. there was a nice thick layer of food along the entire bottom of the tank. well, i think they are full now! i have done two water and filter changes, and the water is still so cloudy that it is difficult to see the back of the tank. and it is not a big tank.

and then today, i was taking a nap since i work tonight, CJ was sleeping with me, and G was supposed to be cleaning his room. M took this opportunity to ... well, let's say play... in the bathroom. i am sure that if she had not fallen then things would have been much worse. she emptied two tubes of toothpaste onto the mirrors, and if the fish were not happy in their tank, they may have been able to find a nice home in the small pond that made its way to the floor. i realize that i tell G all the time not to tattle... but maybe he could have chosen this time not to listen to that.

i don't know what i am going to do with her... i think there are laws against duct-taping your children to a chair (and at the rate she is going, i'm positive she would escape that anyways...) so i guess i will just have to grow a pair of those "eyes in the back of the head" that i was sure my parents had when i was a child. here's to hoping this week goes a little better than last week did...

what is it about food on a stick that is so appealing to children? is it the fact that their food now has a handle, so as not to further dirty those little fingers? this could be it, as we took the little monsters out to eat the other day and M had a corn dog and ate it right up. CJ had chicken fingers and he barely touched them until my dear hubby used the sticks from his own plate to give the chicken a handle. the chicken was gone shortly after that (even M ate one now that it had a stick in it!).
after some more thought on the food on a stick phenomenon, i actually think that even at their young age they have already figured out that all the good foods come on a stick. here are a few that i thought of:

1. cotton candy
2. lollipops
3. popsicles
4. corn dogs
5. caramel apples
6. candy apples

and for the adults who like to have a handle, the renaissance festival will serve you:

1. steak on a stick &
2. corn on the cob (on a stick)

as it turns out, people all over put all kinds of food on sticks. just a quick look on google and you can find pizza, cookies, fruit, a waffle dog (that looked pretty tasty...) and much more. it seems the fascination with the stick lasts much longer then i previously believed to be a fascination among children alone.

it has been a long week. i am pretty sure i haven't gotten anything done. i know i forgot to take G to his boy scout trip to the police station. i thought it was on thursday - turns out it was on tuesday. oops. i did manage to get to the polls on tuesday and i drug my hubby along. i am dissapointed in the most of the results, but we did have this crazy amendment on out ballot that got shut down! lol. i suppose if you make it out and voice your opinion, that is better then nothing. there are still places in the world that you can't even do that, so i guess we are lucky in that respect. other then that, i got nothing done. i will try to do better next week i guess.
i did make it to G's parent-teacher conference last week though and i got some good and some not so good news. he is in the 79th percentile for math for kids his age and the 98th for reading. that's pretty good considering they seem to have just started doing math this year. he is still being disruptive in class, though not as bad as last year. he's a pretty smart kid, so i'm sure he will bring up that math score soon.
i have finished the third quilt top, just one more and then i will start working on finishing them up. it has been fun to get these together after not doing any for so long. i am just glad that it seems to be a skill that is not easily forgotten. the next one is another "log cabin" variation. it is neat to see how the same pattern can turn out looking so many different ways. and it certainly makes it easy to cut the pieces - other then the middle squares, all i need are strips! i have been doing all the cutting at work, we aren't usually too busy at three in the morning. gotta do something to stay awake!
well, after all that, i guess i got a couple things done...

halloween was actually a lot of fun! i got up just in time for dinner, and then i got to get the kids all dressed up and go out trick or treating. the weather was perfect, we didnt even need coats! for anyone who has ever gone trick or treating in colorado springs, you know that is awesome! G is 6 this year, but every halloween before this we have either had to go to the mall or bundle up because it is always cold, blowy, snowy, or anyother condition that makes walking around outside with small children absolutely miserable. it could be 110 degrees out the day before (not that it has actually ever done that before...) and it will snow on halloween. it seems the curse was broken this year though.

the kids looked so cute in their costumes though. if the tops look familiar, just look at the previous post. :) CJ would not keep his patch on, but he left everything else alone for once. this is a kid that will put on a hat just so he can take it off!

candy-wise, they did pretty good. we were only out for about an hour (despite the good weather, their legs still got tired). we got to see a fox run across a driveway and a buck walking down the sidewalk! strange stuff always seems to happen on halloween... when we got home, they had some candy and read "how i became a pirate" and then watched a movie. i hope next year is this nice.

one day i will in fact be organized again. it seems that even the most organized person (myself) is bound to lose her way when she adds a hubby and three kids to the mix. today i finally got some of those pictures off my camera. i still need to do some editing, but i got a few done. it is also almost 3:30 am right now, so it is pretty unlikely that i will do anymore tonight... these are from the renaissance festival that we all went to in june.

how nice of C to let me dress him in this get-up!

princess M playing in the fountain.


all day G wanted to slay they dragon... we never did do that!

we now have fish.

the kids have wanted a pet for sometime now and i finally gave in. we found a lost dog a while ago and kept it overnight until its owner came to take it home. although that was fun for the night, i knew as soon as it left that we would not be getting a dog anytime soon. and due to the hubby's cat allergy, we had to think on a smaller scale. i figure fish are a safe bet. they stay in the tank; they eat there, sleep there, poop there... perfect! all i have to do is feed them and keep the tank clean. (i will be recruiting a plycostamus [sp?] to help me with this task at a later date.)

so far they are great. there have been no casualties. we got them each a fancy goldfish, but they are all different so i can tell them apart. they even named them. we have Vader, Princess & ObiWan. i guess this is my test. if i can manage to keep these alive and keep the tank looking presentable, maybe we can move on to a bigger animal in a couple years. of course, if i'm lucky, they will just love the fish and i will not have to take on the responsibility of cleaning up the poop of something that i did not give birth to.

only 10 more days 'til halloween... i'm torn between excitement and dread. i am looking forward to the kiddos dressing up, they are all going to be pirates this year - how fun is that?!?! i don't think they are going to agree to do a common theme many more times. i managed to keep myself on a pretty strict budget this year and i did pretty well. all i had to buy was the eye-patches and a bandana for each of them. so $6. pretty darn good if you ask me. the rest we can just use what we have at home. i am debating getting some yarn to sew some "dreads" into their bandanas for hair... we'll see if i get to that before the 10 days are up.

i think i am learning a bit as a parent, i definately made some halloween blunders in the past as far as costumes go. i think it was 2005 that G wanted to be Jango Fett from Star Wars and i didnt even blink at the $80 price tag for the costume and 2 "blasters"! not sure what i was thinking there, but that is NOT going to happen again. i like the idea that they can make their costumes out of things we have, or at least with very few outside purchases. imagination is something that has gotten lost and needs to be found again. i don't know that my parents ever actually bought me a costume, i'm pretty sure we had to make them, or my mom made them for us (yes - i remember the clown wig you made mom!). maybe next year G will actually want to make his costume after he sees how much fun it can be... i can only hope i suppose...

we will be carving a pumpkin or 2 this weekend, that should be fun. i think i'm going to pass on the store bought kits for that too, and just carve some classic jack-o-lantern faces!

the funeral was nice. it is amazing to know more about the life she led, i guess you only see so much of a person while they are at work. i am glad that her life was so much more than that. i knew she was artsy, but i found out she really made art, and she wrote, and loved poetry. it was all really great, and i got to see just how amazing she was in touching other's lives the way that she did my own.

i can only hope that i am ale to have such a positive impact on my own friends and family.

well, i have been watching what i eat now for a few days, and sadly i haven't noticed much yet. i know it takes time and all, so i am willing to stick it out. at the very least, i am eating a more balanced variety of foods, and i am pretty sure that is a good thing...

the exercise has been hard to fit in though. i was going to try and do Yoga after i come home from work in the morning, but i have just been so tired that i have gone to bed. I will try harder to get at least a few days in next week (maybe as early as tomorrow morning...).

on another note, i found out yesterday that a woman i worked with at my last job died on saturday. i had heard that she was sick, but i really had no idea things were so bad. i will be going to her funeral service tomorrow evening. she was really an absolutely wonderful person to know. even though i hated going to work, she would always make me laugh. she always knew how to make the day go by in a more delightful way, and the days she was not at work just drug on to no end. i will certainly miss her dearly, i know she will go on to a better place.

i guess i will leave on that note...

well, i have decided to start quilting again. for those of you that know me, you know that my short break ended up being close to five years. yup, since then i have managed to get a job, get a divorce, get pregnant, go back to school, get pregnant again, get married, stop going to school again and change jobs. needless to say, it has been a while. i was a little worried that i would have forgotten how to do it (why i thought this, i don't really know) but i seem to be doing pretty good. i started out pretty simple, i managed to piece a rail fence throw size quilt last week and i really like how it turned out. i will post a pic as soon as i have it all finished. now i am working on a two-tone log cabin. i've only gotten my "test block" done at this point, but i think it looks great! i cant wait to get this one together.

i did forget how easy it was to get consumed in a fabric store... one of the colors in this quilt is purple, and since the last quilt i made before my "break" was a king size purple and green quilt, my stash of purple fabrics was a little low. almost non-existant to be more accurate. as a true scrap-quilting kinda gal, i am a sucker for fat quarters. they're just the right size for me to put a few pieces of each into so many different quilts. so, today i packed up the family and headed to the fabric store. i did manage to find four great purples to use in this quilt. of course i found a green, and a red, and a pink, and a blue, and a yellow, and a really great orange with little pumpkins on it - but not so over the top halloweeny that i couldn't put it into any quilt i wanted to. i could have stayed in there all day and admired all the beautiful patterns. they have a little lego table to keep the kids occupied, which only made it easier to take my time browsing. i looked at all the cute baby prints, the great fall colors, even the true halloween only prints. i almost forgot i had brought the kids with me until i heard them yelling (playfully - but still yelling) in the back of the store. so i got my 10 fat quarters and a new square ruler and i was on my way.

everytime i get new fabric, i have to take out a small square and put it aside. i need 800 squares to make the charm quilt that i have had planned for some time now. once i hit 800, i will cut them all in half, send half to my grandma, and we will both make the same quilt pattern. i wonder if they will look at all alike, who knows. after i add the 10 i got today, i will be up to 650 pieces. i think i have a few more in my cloth stash that are set aside until i cut out of them too. 800 is getting closer and closer all the time. i get excited everytime i think about it.

so, i will get back to cutting out my squares and then my "logs" for the cabin!!

tata for now!

so, here it goes...

a lot of people seem to like doing this so i thought i would try it out. i, like a lot of others, have been watching the election, wall street, and all of the other crazy stuff going on right now and i have beed wondering what it all means to me. my hubby and i have been together now for four and a half years now, and back then everything was all peaches & sunshine. since then, he has had two surgeries due to his diabetes, we have had two children (and i have another from my previous marriage), he is not working (though he is "technically" still employed - but that is a whole other story...) and i am trying to survive on less then i was making a year ago due to a job change.

all in all, things are starting to get worrysome.

i wonder if i will be able to keep my job, pay my rent, feed my children, pay my bills, i could go on, but you probably get the point. and my hubby's diabetes is not getting any better. i know that part of that has to do with his own self-esteem at this point. not working for the past two years, he has confessed that he has been feeling worthless lately. we have also both put on some weight with all the stress and babies that have come into our life, it just seems that there is no end to it all.

so, anyways, my goal with this blog (at least to start) is to work my way through all of this and hopefully come out a healthier, happier mommy & wife.

i have managed to get a small start in organizing my life, i have done some research on what diabetics should be eating every day and i have made us some charts so that we can keep track of what we are eating. i also made a chart to track our fitness as well. i think a good starting goal for me is to lose 20 pounds (the amount i have gained since i started this job in june...) and i think he can start there as well. i want all of us to get out of the house for at least 30 minutes a day as a family, and i think another 30 minutes of exercise as well will do. i think this is a lofty goal, but i think we can do it if we both try!

i guess i will be off for now - it is time do get started on our new life! i can worry about the economy and the election tomorrow...